Collaborative Research: What's the question? A cross-linguistic investigation into compositional and pragmatic constraints on the question under discussion

语言的最大价值在于它的意义，在于话语中交换的信息。这个项目是一个广泛的学术努力的一部分，以找出这种意义是如何确定的，并确定可以从所说的话中得出什么样的推论。最近对语言意义的研究，包括四位PI在这个项目上发表的许多工作，表明句子的意义受到句子表达的上下文的极大影响。具体来说，三个机构的项目小组在过去的工作中已经表明，一个句子的含义是如何受到说话者试图解决的问题的极大影响的。事实上，句子的意义只能根据说出的句子回答的问题来完全理解，这就产生了一个问题，因为给定话语所解决的问题通常是隐含的。因此，通常情况下，听者只能通过重新创建被回答的问题来完全理解说出的句子的含义。要做到这一点，听者必须从许多可用的线索中进行推理，例如话语中使用的语调，以及说话者的意图。这个项目的目标是进行实证和理论工作，这将确定的过程中，隐含的问题显示。在这个项目中要进行的工作是对理解人类文化和人类交流的内在兴趣，也有重要的实际应用，例如在自然语言处理领域。为了制造能够理解和使用语言的计算机，必须识别出人类语言理解的特征。该项目还为美国机构的年轻研究人员提供高级培训机会，开发可以影响广泛领域的实验和其他研究方法，并分析与具有战略价值的自然语言技术相关的语言基础问题。该项目设置在一个讨论中的问题模型的上下文中，在该模型中，上下文包含一个动态演变的问题堆栈。这个模型的问题是弄清楚任何给定的话语延伸都要解决什么问题。三种类型的约束的问题将探讨跨语言：词汇的限制，例如，焦点敏感的表达式和事实谓词，信息结构的限制，包括那些强加的语调和分裂结构，和上下文的限制，如格赖斯原则。这一目标是通过扩大方法，三个机构的团队在以前的工作中共同开创：实验研究，基于语料库的研究自然发生的话语，和跨语言的实地考察的混合。开发工作首先以英语和瓜拉尼语（图皮-瓜拉尼语）为重点，并对其他语言进行了选择性工作，以测试工作中特别相关的方面，包括K 'iche'和Kaqchikel（均为玛雅语）、匈牙利语（乌戈尔语）和Taglas（南岛语）。在整个项目中，将强调开发适合于理论上未经训练的母语使用者的数据收集方法

The greatest value of language resides in its meaning, in the information that is exchanged in discourse. This project is part of a broad scholarly effort to find out how that meaning is determined, and to identify what inferences can be drawn from what is said. Recent research on meaning in language, including much published work by the four PIs on this project, shows that the meaning of a sentence is dramatically affected by the context in which the sentence is uttered. Specifically, the three-institution project team has shown in past work how the meaning of a sentence is greatly affected by what question the speaker seeks to address. The fact that a sentence meaning can only be fully grasped in terms of the question the uttered sentence answers creates a problem because the question addressed by a given utterance is typically implicit. So, often a listener can only fully understand the meaning of an uttered sentence by recreating the question that was answered. To do this, the listener must reason from many available clues, for example the intonation used in the utterance, and what is known of the speaker's intentions. The goal of this project is to conduct empirical and theoretical work which will identify the process by which implicit questions are revealed. The work to be undertaken in this project is of intrinsic interest in understanding human culture and human communication, and also has significant practical applications, for example in the field of Natural Language Processing. To build computers that can understand and use language, the features that inform human language understanding must be identified. The project also offers advanced training opportunities for young researchers at US institutions, develops experimental and other research methodologies that can impact a broad range of fields, and analyzes a foundational problem in language which is related to strategically valuable natural language technology. The project is set in the context of a Question Under Discussion model in which the context incorporates a dynamically evolving stack of questions. The problem for this model is to figure out what question is addressed by any given stretch of discourse. Three types of constraint on the question will be explored cross-linguistically: lexical constraints contributed by, for instance, focus sensitive expressions and factive predicates, information-structural constraints, including those imposed by intonation and cleft constructions, and contextual constraints, such as Gricean principles. This goal is pursued by expanding methodologies which the three-institution team has jointly pioneered in previous work: a mix of experimental research, corpus-based studies of naturally occurring utterances, and cross-linguistic fieldwork. The development effort is spearheaded with English and Paraguayan Guaraní (Tupí-Guaraní) and selective work is performed on other languages to test aspects of the work that are particularly germane, including K'iche' and Kaqchikel (both Mayan), Hungarian (Ugric) and Tagalog (Austronesian). Throughout the project, there will be an emphasis on the development of data-collection methods appropriate for use with theoretically untrained native speakers